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7 Ways To Improve Your Personal Credibility As A Business Owner

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Personal Credibility|7 Ways To Improve Your Personal Credibility As A Business OwnerIf people don’t trust you, they won’t trust your business. This is why it’s so important to not just prove that your business is credible, but that you are credible too.

Invest in the right qualifications and licenses

Qualifications and licenses are compulsory to work in certain industries (you can’t become a doctor without a medical degree or an electrician without an electrical license). In other cases, qualifications and licenses may be optional – but they could still be worth pursuing in order to prove to clients and employees that you know your stuff. Nowadays, there are so many flexible options when it comes to taking courses. Think about which qualifications and licenses could be a benefit to you.

Create a LinkedIn account and get people to endorse you

Every business owner nowadays needs a LinkedIn page. Certain clients may want to look you up on LinkedIn in order to get an idea of your credentials – if you don’t have LinkedIn, they may not trust you. Build a page today if you don’t already have one and start connecting with people you know. It’s worth asking these people to endorse skills as this will help you look more reputable.

Show off your achievements with a personal bio website

A personal bio website such as this one belonging to Jonathan Dax Cooke could improve your online credibility further. Such websites are a great opportunity to list your achievements in your own words and paint the best picture of you. It can be particularly good for SEO – when people search your name, they’re likely to see your bio and read it.

Join professional groups and organizations

It’s good to network with other professionals and influential people. By getting to know these types of people, you’re likely to get recommendations, which will improve your credibility. There are all kinds of groups and organizations out there that you can join. This could include local business groups or even industry committees.

Lead seminars and workshops

Seminars and workshops are a chance to pass on your skills and knowledge. This can help you to look more credible – if a client knows that you’ve run a workshop on a subject, it will show that you’re competent enough (or at the very least confident enough) to do a good job. You could host seminars and workshops in person, or you could host them online.

Give advice through blog posts or vlog videos

Blogging and vlogging is another way to pass on your knowledge and skills – and it’s much easier than running a seminar or workshop. Potential clients may read your blog posts or watch your videos and then trust you as an expert. Consider starting a blog or launching a vlog series today.

Make sure that you look the part

How you look can also impact your credibility. Make sure that you don’t look scruffy when meeting clients – keeping your appearance neat and tidy will give off the impression that you’re organized and that you take pride in your image. This guide from Marcus Lemonis explains more about how to look the part.

Handling Negative Business Reviews

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Handling Negative Business Reviews

It happens to all of us at some point. No matter how hard you work and no matter how much you try to do your best, a customer eventually has a negative experience. Unfortunately, when a customer has a negative experience no matter the fault, you can get hit with a negative review. While it surely stings, it’s not the end of the world. Luckily, you can actually take steps towards turning the negative review into a positive experience for both your business and the customer if you handle the situation the right way. Below, we will be going over some tips for handling negative reviews with the help of Cormac Reynolds from VelSEOity.

1. Don’t React

One of the main things that you want to do is avoid having a knee jerk reaction to the customer who is upset. By responding with negativity, you can guarantee that you will encounter even more negativity which can spiral out of control. Avoid reacting negatively and slapping back to the negative review for the entire world to see. While you want to respond swiftly, you need to do so in a calm and collected manner. If necessary, vent your frustration offline by doing some exercise or by conducting deep breathing exercises. It’s important to understand that a negative review can be a good opportunity to showcase your customer service.

2. Respond Quickly

As mentioned, you don’t want to delay when you are dealing with a negative review. Take quick action and don’t let the negative review fester. Ignoring a negative review is one of the worst things you can do. You want to deal with the negative review as soon as you calm down and can approach the situation with a calm mind. You should take steps towards acknowledging the customer’s pain points and let them know that you are there to remedy any situation they feel they’ve been wronged in.

3. Don’t Make Any Excuses

Even if you feel as though you did nothing wrong in the situation, it is important to avoid making excuses. You want to accept responsibility no matter what because “the customer is always right.” By showing the customer you understand they had a bad experience and you want to make it right, you will be able to showcase that you care about your customers for the world to see.

4. Make It Better

Once you have established communication, you will want to take steps towards actively resolving the problem. When you showcase that you are able and willing to take responsibility for the situation and that you are willing and able to make it right, you have a good chance of convincing the customer that it was a one-time mistake that didn’t warrant such a harsh review.] A lot of times, you will even be able to convince them to change their review and showcase the steps you took to remedy the situation which can turn it into a positive for your business.

One way to do so is to hire an online reputation management agency that can help you suppress and repair comments, all while monitoring your online presence. Make it better by taking control of what information is out there about you and your business and what consumers see. You can not only suppress negative Google results but can work to impress everyone who comes across your business online and create a long-lasting and positive impression. The experts can ensure your reputation is a good one and that you’re able to rebuild and regain trust with your customers and potential clients. Let today be the day you work to improve your business reputation and get off on a better foot.

5. Ask For Positive Reviews

When you are dealing with customers that just want to be angry or even trolls that haven’t frequented your business, you simply have to showcase your motivation for resolving the problem. Another good way to minimize the negative impact a bad review can have on your business is by asking for positive reviews from satisfied customers – this helps you pre-empt such issues and helps protect your reputation. This will help you drown out of the negative feedback with positive feedback. A lot of customers are ready and willing to help out their favorite businesses by writing positive reviews. All you have to do is ask! It is very important to encourage feedback across all review channels for various reasons:

72 percent of customers look towards online reviews when they are attempting to make purchasing decisions. There are search engines like Google who even include online reviews when they are ranking query results. Therefore, the more positive feedback you are able to accumulate, the higher you will likely get your rankings. The more positive feedback you are able to get, the better your chances of converting a prospective customer into an actual customer since they will be much more inclined to frequent your business due to having a high customer satisfaction rating.

Becoming a Reliable Provider: 4 Proven Strategies for Building Trust in Your Industry of Choice

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StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Building Trust|Becoming a Reliable Provider: 4 Proven Strategies for Building Trust in Your Industry of ChoiceMost people fail to realize just how difficult starting a business and making it successful can be. If a business owner does not focus on providing their customers with top-notch service, keeping them loyal will be extremely difficult. For most consumers, finding businesses that they can trust is imperative.

Establishing trust with consumers and clients can be difficult. Developing a strategy that revolves around providing potential customers with social proof of how well a business has performed for others in the past is a good idea. With this social proof, consumers can get a feel for how reputable a particular company is. The following are some of the things a business owner can do to build more trust with potential customers.

1. A High Level of Transparency

Shrouding what a business does in mystery can backfire in spectacular fashion. Current and potential customers want to know exactly what a business does and how it can benefit them. For instance, if a particular business provides payroll services to business, they need to show potential customers how safe and secure their services are. The best way to do this is by providing consumers with a SOC 1 Report.

This report will detail the internal controls and policies a business has in place to protect the sensitive information they deal with. With this high level of transparency, a business owner should have no problem attracting new clients. Going the extra mile to provide proof of how trustworthy a business it can pay off in the long run.

2. Provide Consumers With Social Proof

Modern consumers spend a lot of time online researching businesses before using them. In most cases, these consumers are looking for things like online reviews from former or current customers of a particular business. As a business owner, a person needs to work on making it easy to find social proof of how well their company performs.

This is why putting positive customer reviews on the homepage of a business website is a good idea. By making it easy for consumers to find this information, a business owner will have no problem increasing the number of valuable sales leads they attract. Asking satisfied customers for these positive reviews may be a bit intimidating at first, but it will be easier as time goes by.

3. Being Accessible is Important

Making it easy for consumers to reach out for information about the products/services a business offers is also important when attempting to establish trust. This is why making it easy for consumers to contact business is crucial. Investing in things like website chatbots is a wise idea. These AI-infused tools allow a business owner to address the concerns a consumer has any time of day. With the help of IT professionals, using these tools will be much easier.

4. An Online Presence is a Must

Over 90 percent of Internet users never go past the first page of Google when researching businesses in their area. Getting a business website on the first page of Google will require a lot of marketing-savvy and hard work. Creating an online presence for a business is no easy task. This is why hiring an experienced marketing agency to lend a hand is important. The higher a business website ranks on Google, the more trustworthy they will appear to consumers.

The Power of Consumer Trust

Building trust with modern consumers will help a business grow and prosper. Ignoring the need for a great online reputation and excellent customer service will lead to problems finding and obtaining new clients.

5 Simple Steps for Building a Good Reputation Online

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StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, 5 Simple Steps for Building a Good Reputation Online

Having a good reputation online is key to making your business grow and flourish. But knowing where to start can feel overwhelming.

Keep reading to learn the five steps to building and managing your company’s reputation online.

1. Create Your Online Business Card

Think of your webpage as a business card. You want to have a catchy domain name that is unambiguous and short. Focus on the main page, paying attention to the design, and make sure it doesn’t get overcrowded with too much information as this could lose your readers.

You’ll want to make sure your layout is visually interesting and the text is clear with graphics and pictures that match. Any detailed information should go into separate sections.

You’ll want to make sure your contact and about buttons are easy to locate. Highlight your companies greatest achievements in the about section. Have the address of your headquarters, e-mail, telephone number, directions, and map in your contact section.

You should also include a section where clients can put reviews and opinions, which has been shown to boost sales. There are even online reputation management companies that can help you out.

2. A Blog Is Key for a Good Reputation Online

Your website should also have a blog filled with inspiration yet professional content. Blogs are great places to share your company’s values and products while building the image that your business is an expert in your field.

You’ll want to put a lot of effort into your blog, making sure you don’t have any grammatical errors or confusing language. Take your posts up a notch with relevant charts, infographics, and pictures.

3. Be Active on Social Media

Social media helps prospective clients find your business. Having a strong social media presence will help your company’s reputation.

You can inform your clients about new products or articles on your webpage. Make sure your social media posts are all brief, attention-grabbing, and to the point.

4. Reply to Every Request or Opinion

You need to show your potential and current clients that you have an accessible business that treats people respectfully, which means you’ll want to respond to every review or message you receive. If you see a negative comment, respond politely with understanding and avoiding conflict.

Take advantage of any positive comments by proudly sharing them on your social media platforms. This is proof of the quality of your products and or services.

5. Share Your Achievements and Awards

People will trust companies that are award-winning and experienced. Clients are more likely to work with a company that has been recognized over a company that has not. So make sure all your glowing reviews, accomplishments, and awards are easy to see on your website.

Fix Your Online Reputation Today

Now that you know the five steps to build and maintain a good reputation online, start making these changes today. A website that is to the point and easy to find and navigate will help grow your company for years to come.
For more resources of growing your business, check out the rest of our blog.

Two Things That Can Tarnish Your Online Business

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article
 
There are two fundamental aspects of digital commerce that have the potential to tarnish the reputation of your success; the loading speed of your website and the credibility of your email account. Indeed, there are many essential ingredients every business needs but perhaps there are none more important in the sphere of online business than the load speed of your website and the amount of emails that get through to your list of subscribers.

First off, let’s take a look at your email account.

Email marketing is one of the most essential ways to communicate with customers today, indeed it is one of the most essential aspects of digital marketing, yet it can be notoriously difficult as often commercial emails end up in spam folders.

Today, there are over a hundred different SPAM blacklists in operation but with the use of certain tools and strategies such as using email list verification, this risk can be mitigated in order to ensure the majority of emails do get through to their intended recipients.

Now, let’s look at how the loading speed of your website.

It’s well known that there’s a direct correlation between the loading time of your website and bounce rate, that is to say the number of people that visit your site but leave straight away; just like in the offline retail world, where a customer walks into a shop then walks straight out.

In fact, to better explain the term ‘bounce rate’ it can help to picture a busy shopping centre – where people are walking around browsing or searching for a particular solution. In the shopping centre, signposts help point people in the right direction, whereas in the online world, Google is the authority.

In the offline retail world, people naturally browse a few different stores based on the attractiveness of their retail display amongst other factors such as brand awareness and perceived relevance to their needs.

Now, as the store owner once they come through the door, it’s your job to engage them with special offers, product demonstrations, engaging retail displays, and relevant ideas to solve a problem they face.

In essence, your job as a retailer is to engage consumers so they spend as much time in your retail environment as possible – for there’s a direct correlation between the amount of time spent in a store and the amount of money spent. This is why large retail brands invest so much in visual merchandising.

Now, in the digital world, if you have high traffic but low engagement this is known as having a high bounce rate.

The reason a high bounce rate will cripple your online business success is because it’s akin to people walking in your store, and then straight back out, without buying anything. Whilst a high bounce rate can be attributed to many factors such as a lack of engaging content, or a lack of perceived relevance, it has been found that 40% of potential customers will leave your website if the site takes more than 3 seconds to load.

This is particularly pertinent in our increasingly impatient digital world and therefore we’re going to take a brief look at three ways to optimise the loading speed of your website.

1. Hosting

Load speed can be somewhat contingent on your hosting provider, and therefore, it’s something you should seriously consider before committing to a provider. If you have a high volume of traffic to your website then you might want to consider upgrading to private hosting, as this can offer a much speedier service in terms of load speed.

2. Optimize Images

Many website owners use large image files and then scale them down automatically using CSS, to be displayed on the user’s device. This might not seem like a problem, but the challenge is the browser has to load the full size image, then scale it down, which is a very inefficient way to process photos – and this can seriously affect load speed.

3. Enable Browser Caching

When you regularly visit a website some of the elements of that web page are stored on your hard drive, in a temporary storage folder, known as a cache. As a website owner, if you enable browser caching it means you are able to temporarily store data on the user’s computer which means they will have a much faster loading experience.